Hiroshima

Back across the water we went for a day in Hiroshima.  Without a huge amount of time to spend we headed to the second main event in Hiroshima, the Hiroshima Peace Park (the main event being the baseball: Hiroshima Carp taking on the Tokyo Giants at Mazda Stadium).

The museum provides a very detailed, and in some places graphic, account of the atomic bomb dropped on the 6th of August 1945.  Photos from the time show the devastation over a massive area, with nearly everything within a 2km radius of the bomb destroyed.

After visiting the museum, we walked across the park to the A-Bomb dome (formerly Hiroshima Prefecture Industrial Promotion Hall), which was one of the few buildings to remain standing following the bombing.  This building has been preserved in the state that it was in following the bombing and is now World Heritage listed.

A-bomb dome.

Before the bombing (c/o wikipedia).